his arms, with a view of throwing off the incumbent weight, but not a muscle will obey the impulse of the will: he groans aloud, if he has strength to do it, while every effort he makes seems to exhaust the little remaining vigour. The difficulty of breathing goes on increasing, so that every breath he draws, seems to be almost the last that he is likely to draw; the heart generally moves with increased velocity, sometimes is affected with palpitation; the countenance appears ghastly, and the eyes are half open. The patient, if left to himself, lies in this state generally about a minute or two, when he recovers all at once the power of volition: upon which he either jumps up in bed, or instantly changes his position, so as to wake himself thoroughly. If this be not done, the paroxysm is very apt to recur again immediately, as the propensity to sleep is almost irresistible, and, if yielded to, another paroxysm of Night-Mare is for the most part inevitable.
Where the Disease has not established itself by very frequent recurrence, the patient generally feels little inconvenience from it when thoroughly awoke; but where it is habitual, there will generally be felt some confusion in the head, with singing in the ears, a sense of weight about the forehead, and, if in the dark, luminous spectra are frequently seen, such as appear to persons who immediately after gazing on a strong light, close their eyes. The pulse, I believe, will in all instances be found to be considerably accelerated; in my own case the motion of the heart amounts almost to a palpitation.
I do not find this symptom taken notice of by any writer on the subject, excepting Etmuller, whose accuracy in tracing the history of every disease allowed no symptom to escape him. When reasoning on the phenomena which this affection exhibits, “et cum etiam simul sub respirationis defectu imminuta plus minus evadat sanguinis circulatio, ob id ab eodem infarcti pulmones anxietatem insignem præcordiorum inducunt: sicut dum evigilant tales ægri, cor insignitur palpitat, quod testatur motum convulsivum.”—This palpitation of the heart grows stronger in proportion to the length of the paroxysm, or the difficulty the patient finds in waking himself.
There is, however, another symptom, which, as far as I am able to learn, is very frequent, though not noticed by medical writers. (Scilicet.) Priapismus interdum vix tolerabilis et aliquamdiu post paroxysmi solutionem persistens. I have noticed this symptom here, as I intend presently to draw some inference from it. A sense of weight at the stomach, and an unpleasant taste in the mouth will generally be found to remain after the paroxysm, though seldom noticed, as it is not suspected to have any connexion with the Night-Mare.
These are the most ordinary symptoms, and such as generally happen in almost all paroxysms of Night-Mare; there are, however, other symptoms which occasionally occur, and which sometimes cause no small alarm to the patient. It frequently happens too, that the paroxysm goes off without the patient waking, and in that case is productive of strange hallucination to the person who is not accustomed to these paroxysms. It is by no means an uncommon thing for the person labouring under Night-Mare to see, or at least to imagine that he sees, some figure, either human, or otherwise, standing by him, threatening him, or deriding, or oppressing him. This circumstance has been productive of considerable misapprehensions and mistakes, not only with persons of weak minds, but likewise with those whose intellectual faculties have been greatly improved.—These visions are various, as are likewise the senses which become thus hallucinated; not only the sight, but the hearing, and the touch, are frequently imposed on. These hallucinations have so often occurred to myself, that they have long been rendered quite familiar, although they are still sometimes productive of very laughable mistakes. As they are more frequently, however, of the terrific cast, they act very powerfully on the minds of those who are not acquainted with them, and produce terrors which I verily believe sometimes prove fatal. I shall give some instances of these kinds of visions which I have had from the most indubitable authority, and I do not doubt but that many readers will find in their own recollections a number of circumstances apparently incredible, which will easily admit of the same solution. I must first premise, that the degree of consciousness during a paroxysm of Night-Mare is so much greater than ever happens in a dream, that the person who has had a vision of this kind cannot easily bring himself to acknowledge the deceit, unless, as often happens, he wakes out of the paroxysm, and finds himself in a very different place to what he must have been in for such a transaction to have occurred. When however, all the circumstances of time and place concur with the vision, which sometimes happens, and the patient does not wake in the paroxysm, but continues asleep for some time after, the transactions which occurred during the paroxysm of Night-Mare, and those of the dreams which took place during profound sleep are so very different as to the impression they have left on the sensorium, that there is no possibility of confounding them with one another. Indeed I know no way which a man has of convincing himself that the vision which has occurred during a paroxysm of Night-Mare, (if it be consistent in point of time and place,) is not real, unless he could have the evidence of other persons to the contrary who were present, and awake at the time, or that these hallucinations were rendered familiar to him by frequent repetition. I shall mention some circumstances here, which have occurred to myself and to others, which will place this subject in a clearer point of view.
The first case of this kind which I shall relate, I had from the mouth of a person of undoubted veracity, who never understood the nature of the hallucination; but who, to the day of his death, was convinced that he had received a supernatural visitation.
Mr. T–, a dissenting minister, was on a journey in Suffolk, and slept at the house of a friend. He was desired by the master of the family not to disturb himself in the morning till he was called; supposing that he was fatigued and would require repose. Mr. T–, however, did not sleep very sound, he awoke often, and as it was in the summer season, and he had no watch with him, began to grow anxious about the time, as it had been long day-light: he thought, however, on what he had been told over night, and was expecting very shortly to be called to breakfast. He described himself as being awoke out of his sleep by hearing distinctly some person in an adjoining room get out of bed, and walk across the room to a door communicating with his own, which he heard opened, and a voice called to him, repeating distinctly his name, three times. He supposes that he immediately afterwards fell asleep, and did not wake till some time after, when, he observed, he had a paroxysm of Night-Mare; on recovering, however, from this, he instantly got up, supposing that he had overslept himself, and that the family would be waiting for him to breakfast. He was greatly surprised to find the doors and the windows of the house all close shut, and no one of the family stirring; it was in fact only five o’clock in the morning. He consequently returned to bed, and slept comfortably till breakfast was really announced to him. He related to the family the adventure which had occurred to him, which seemed to cause little surprize, but produced tears from some of them: they informed him that nobody slept in the adjoining room, but that it had formerly been occupied by their son, who had been several years at sea; that they had heard nothing of him for some months, and entertained no doubt of his being dead, and this circumstance served to confirm them in their opinion, and left no doubt in the minds of all present that Mr. T– had received a supernatural visitation. Mr. T– was himself of the same opinion to the day of his death, although the young gentleman whose fate was considered so well ascertained, proved in the sequel to be alive.
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